Greyhound cutting workers' hours back to part-time part of rise in part-time and contract work
Eunice Gibbons, right, leads the line of Greyhound terminal workers fighting for higher pay and more hours. Workers want a minimum wage of $15 and more full-time work. Their demonstration was held April 25 in front of the terminal on Chester Avenue.
(Thomas Ondrey, The Plain Dealer)
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Workers demonstrating recently in front of the Greyhound terminal for higher pay and more hours offered a local window to the national low-wage workers movement.
The workers are demanding a minimum hourly wage of $15 in their contract negotiations with the Dallas-based bus company. The highest paid of them makes little more than $11 per hour, said Herman Green, vice president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1700, which represents the 27 workers whose contract expired last year. These aren't drivers, but employees working in the terminal, including those handling baggage, selling tickets and providing Greyhound Package Express service. The union is also attempting to negotiate the first contract for 12 food service workers at the terminal, who voted in a union about a year ago.
Many of these workers make less than the proposed $10.10 federal minimum wage hike that has hit a roadblock in Congress. The union said the company proposed these workers not receive set raises. Instead, pay increases would be based on what the union describes as an intricate scheme focused on group performance goals that are virtually impossible to meet.
"We are pushing for a living wage," said Jimmy McCoy, president of Local 1700. "We have people, who have been working at Greyhound for 20 years, and they are making nowhere near $15. "
Greyhound spokeswoman Alexandra Pedrini, said in an email that the company doesn't discuss wages publicly, especially during contract negotiations. However, she said the company always has been "fair and competitive with regard to wages."
There are economic realities pushing low-wage workers to "take it to the streets," say experts who study the nation's labor market. Such protests include those like the one April 25 outside of the Greyhound terminal on Chester Avenue, as well as the next national fast-food workers strike scheduled for Thursday in 150 cities, where workers will demand a minimum wage of $15.
While higher and middle-income earners also suffered during the recession and slow recovery, those groups have experienced some - even if modest - rebound. For the most part, lower-wage workers have not; and there is some indication that economic forces could only serve to exacerbate this. For example, during the recession, employers cut back hours for workers from all income groups. However, lower-wage workers are the only group still struggling to regain hours, according to research to be released later this month by The Heritage Foundation, the conservative Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
Marsadeise Barginere, a food service worker at the Cleveland terminal, is supposed to get 40 hours a week as a full-time worker. For the past few months, she said she has only been getting an average of 24.
"I am only full-time on paper," said Barginere, an assistant supervisor, which Greyhound calls a lead.
Eric Kintcher, whose assignment as a lead entails several duties at the terminal, is part-time. He said he works an average of 32 hours a week. For several years, Kintcher said he has tried to get full-time work to no avail.
Donald Green, Herman Green's grandson, has been full-time for several months after having been a part-timer for several years. He doesn't know why it took so long to become full-time, when Green said there appears to be enough work for such positions. He said many of his co-workers want full-time hours.
"They are basically tired of it - all this part-time work, with no benefits, working as little as two days a week," said Donald Green, a lead who performs several duties.
Herman Green said the union is concerned about the decrease in full-time positions. There were nine full-time employees when the union began representing workers four years ago, now there are only six, he said.
McCoy, the union president, said the company considers anyone working fewer than 40 hours a week a part-timer.
"They keep them part-time to keep them from getting benefits," he said.
Greyhound said several factors go into determining the number of hours an employee works or if a position will be full or part-time.
"Employees are scheduled for work based on contractual agreements and the needs of their location," Pedrini said in an email. "We operate with a flexible staffing model that adjusts staffing levels based on a number of factors, including passenger volume, seasonality and operational needs, to name a few. When a position becomes available, the needs of that location are then reassessed."
Hours for the lowest paid workers have dropped nationally
Research by James Sherk, a senior policy analyst in labor economics at The Heritage Foundation, suggests that many lower-wage workers are still contending with reduced hours nearly five years after the recession ended. The recession officially began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.
He looked at how the average hourly workweek had changed between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2013 based on income. For those making at least $15, the workweek was the same as it had been before the recession began, even if hours had been cut back during the economic downturn.
Sherk found that workers making $10.50 an hour or less had seen their wages drop 3.4 percent during the six-year period. At $9.75 an hour, Barginere is part of this group.
Those making more than $10.50, but less than $15, fared better, seeing only a 0.4 percent drop in the workweek hours.
"For the folks at the bottom, the workweek hasn't bounced back," he said.
Paul Osterman, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, said the number of full-time adult workers living in poverty has remained at about 25 percent for the past few decades. (The current federal poverty guideline for a family of four is $23,850 a year.) However, their lot may be worse today having been squeezed even harder than the middle class by wage stagnation and forces reshaping the workplace that often drive down wages.
"The numbers haven't moved that much, but the underlying dynamics have," he said. "Employers are making some full-time jobs into part-time jobs and they are subcontracting out work. The market has changed more in the direction of outsourcing. The only way they (employers) can compete is on price, and the only way to get a lower price is to pay lower wages.
"This is what is putting pressure on the bottom of the labor market," Osterman said. "What these Greyhound workers are saying is that they are an example of this larger issue."
He said these trends often give rise to wage theft, which includes not paying overtime and misclassifying workers as independent contractors when they are actually performing the duties of employees. Osterman said getting better enforcement of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which covers these violations, and stiffer penalties may help in reversing these trends.
Osterman said increasing unionization among low-wage workers would also help.
"It is all about power; and who has the ability to push back," he said. "The balance of power in the labor market, in general, has shifted toward the employer, but unions are a countervailing force. "
Cleveland is one of eight Greyhound terminals nationally where workers belong to unions. Others include Atlanta, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. Herman Green said locals at each of these facilities negotiate contracts separately, even though union leaders believe having one contract would give the union more collective bargaining power. They say the company has refused to agree to this.
Sherk said a bad economy has played a major role in lower-wage workers losing hours; and only better economic times will restore them.
"We're five years into the recovery, and statistically speaking, we are closer to the next recession than we are from the end of the last one," he said. "It doesn't feel like a recovery in terms of wages, in terms of job growth and in terms of employment."
Sherk said unionizing isn't the best way to raise wages, especially if raises end up being more than the market can bear -- resulting in layoffs.
"If the union can get increases through contract negotiations, and it isn't going to hurt their jobs, wonderful," he said. "The balancing act is not to cost jobs for theses workers."
Does the low-wage workers' movement have a future?
About a year-and-a-half ago, the first fast-food strike was held in New York City. Since then, a bill to raise the minimum wage is before Congress, though even supporters are increasingly doubtful it will ever come to a vote. Consequently, such efforts have shifted to state and local governments. SeaTac in suburban Seattle raised its minimum wage to $15 last year, and Seattle is now debating whether to also have a $15 minimum.
So the question remains: Just where is the low-wage workers' movement headed, and can it succeed?
Sherk is doubtful of its future. He believes the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, will lead to low-wage workers getting fewer hours because employers face a $2,000 penalty if they don't provide health coverage for employees working at least 30 hours a week. Though such penalties wouldn't take effect until next year, he said surveys of employers show they will cut hours to avoid a penalty.
Other labor market experts say it is too early to tell what employers will do, and that it is improbable for a $2,000 penalty to disrupt a business plan when so many other factors go into such decisions. They also point to part-time employment inching down in recent months after remaining stubbornly high during the recession and most of the recovery.
"For workers who are in those less skilled positions, the best thing for them is upskilling," he said. "You substantially increase your chances of having a better-paying job."
Osterman isn't sure of what the full impact of the low-wage workers movement will be.
"The good news is that it has made issues of the living wage and minimum wage much more front and center on the public agenda than it had been in recent years," he said.
He said the bad news is that the factors creating the pressures that helped give rise to the low-wage workers movement were unlikely to diminish.
"So it is a question of how the balance of power changes, how the politics evolve," he said. "I can't tell you that I know what is going to happen; but I am optimistic that the issue will remain much more salient than it used to be."